Kremlin's youth indoctrination move echoes Soviet tactics

The Kremlin has decided to maximize ideological propaganda among children and teenagers in a Soviet-like manner, for the first time openly listing participation in the war with Ukraine and the West as a value to be instilled from childhood, reports The Moscow Times. "We need warriors, shooters, and assault troops," says one Kremlin official.

The draft law "On Systematizing the Sphere of Youth Policy," which was directed to the State Duma on behalf of all five factions, aims to "shape among young people the readiness to fulfill the constitutional duty of defending the homeland."

"We need warriors, shooters, and assault troops. Those who at the president's first call will run to the recruitment office, and not towards Upper Lars," explained a Kremlin official in an interview with The Moscow Times.

Upper Lars is a checkpoint on the border between Russia and Georgia. In the fall of 2022, Russians left the country through it after the announcement of "partial mobilization."

"The jokes are over, our homeland is in danger, threatened by the West, the USA. We no longer need hipsters, rappers, Western culture enthusiasts, and other non-binary individuals," stated the Kremlin official.

The Kremlin has recognized the battle for young people's minds as one of the main directions of internal policy since 2000, when Vladimir Putin first became president. Money from the central budget was regularly allocated to numerous projects and youth movements under the patronage of Kremlin ideologists—first Vladislav Surkov, later Vyacheslav Volodin, and currently Sergei Kiriyenko.

However, as shown by the massive protests in 2011-2012 and the particularly strong support of young people for Putin's main opponent, Alexei Navalny, on the eve of the 2018 presidential elections, the regime failed to win over the youth.

Since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, Russian authorities have become more enthusiastically involved in youth policy. Just three months after the invasion, in May 2022, the "First Movement" was created on Putin's initiative, reminiscent of the Soviet pioneers. Since the fall of 2022, weekly solemn gatherings with the national flag and the playing of the anthem were introduced in schools.

"Now the presidential administration is simply dusting off old practices and literally studying and adopting methodological recommendations that were used during Stalin's times and later," says a source close to the Kremlin. "There is no point in reinventing the wheel when we have an example before our eyes. The 1930s and the years of the Great Patriotic War. We take the practices of our fathers and grandfathers and prepare the younger generation," he added.

The Kremlin plans to significantly strengthen the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs (Rosmolodezh) to systematically and uniformly coordinate the large number of initiatives in the field of ideological indoctrination of citizens from early childhood—preschools, then schools and higher education—.

Russian media report that the department's financing will be significantly increased, and a new head will appear there next year. Although after the collapse of the USSR, the Russian constitution stated that "no ideology can be established as state or obligatory," in reality, Rosmolodezh will become a front promoting state ideology. To date, Putin has declaratively rejected proposals to return state ideology to the constitution's text, calling "patriotism" the only possible ideology of contemporary Russia.